I know you're tired of hearing about this...

This is what we've been doing the past few days. How pitiful is that face?

We ended up taking Liam back to the doctor Friday night since he couldn't keep down the antibiotic the doctor prescribed. There was a different doctor in the clinic and she told us there was no ear infection. She also said to stop taking the medicine.

I was so confused.

So was the nurse,

since she had been there the night before when we brought him in.

She suggested that we continue trying to give him the medicine.

Oooo boy.

I was even more confused.

It was a LONG weekend. And not in a good way.

His fever didn't break until late Monday. Up until then, we had to pack him around constantly. (That gets tiring when he weighs almost 26 pounds.)

The good news is, he has three new teeth to show for it. Maybe now he can chew all that real people food he's been drooling for.

This next little bit is for Aunt Tanya. It's a long time coming, but I think I finally figured out how to post this.

Kenna's Directing Debut:

p.s. thank you for all the well wishes.

the baby-sitter is coming over for a repeat tomorrow.

hopefully no one gets sick between now and then.

Ranting and Rambling...(might want to skip this post)

Yesterday was not my favorite day.

My morning prayers started out asking for help to understand and complete some things I had for a big deadline at work. Let's just say, I wasn't specific enough when I asked for understanding.

I meant "please give me a light bulb moment in which everything becomes clear and I magically get all this really hard stuff done."

I got "here, let me show you how you have been doing this wrong all along and you will understand how you need to do this in the future because you will be redoing everything from the whole last year."

So my prayer was answered, but totally not what I meant.

I was tired.

The inversion made me grumpy.

And I was really mad at myself for not seeing the problem sooner.

But, at least I had a date with my hubby to look forward to.

When I got home, Liam seemed like he was breathing kind of shallow and fast. I didn't think too much of it, but I thought I ought to call the doctor anyway, just to make sure. The nurse was busy, so I made an appointment for the next day and asked that she call me back when she could.

Matt and I got ready to go out. He picked up my niece to baby-sit for us and we left.

Halfway to the restaurant, I got a call from the doctor's office. I briefly explained what was going on with Liam and they told me I had to get him checked out that night.

We ended up in the doctor's office at 7:45. (Who knew they were open so late?) Turns out the poor kid had an ear infection and fever of 102.5 by the time we got him all checked out.

Next stop - Walgreens for the prescription. I've never been to a Walgreens before. I don't know that I'll go back. They kind of scare me.

Matt took my niece home while I got the kids medicated and in bed. (Lyssa still has a cough and Liam needed to take his prescription for the ear.)

Little did we know, the night was just starting. Between Alyssa and Liam, we were making trips upstairs about every 10 minutes. Liam was fussing and coughing. At one point, he threw up all over everything, completely covering himself and me. Lyssa was whimpering and crying all night. How is that not supposed to break your heart? I hate it when they are sick.

After another doctor's visit this morning, we found out Alyssa's ears are both infected.

We have so much medication in our fridge.

I have had enough. SERIOUSLY.

Also, I want a do-over on the date night. Doctor's offices are not fun places for dates.

I'm going crazy, would you like to come along?

Let's talk about how yesterday went, shall we? (I need the therapy...)

(I'm not even going mention what happened at work yesterday because this would turn into an ANGRY ANGRY rant. But know that it sucked and I was justifiably grumpy.)

On the way home from the place that shall not be named, I drove around a LARGE parking lot for 20 minutes looking for our other car. (Matt and I normally have to switch cars in the middle of the day since only one has all three car seats in it right now.) He was teaching a training class at a place I had never been before. He had called earlier and told me right where to find the car...and I couldn't find it. Bah. Brain? What is that?

By the time I finally DID fid it, I was late picking the kids up. (Can you say SLACKER MOM?)Normally we just trade off the kids when we trade cars, but since he was working all morning, my parents had them. Thankfully they are AWESOME and were just chillin' with the kids when I got there.

I had to drag the girls kicking and screaming out to the car (can you tell that they love grandma and grandpa's house?). That is always so much fun! And then there was the crying and whining all the way home about why they can't just live at grandma's house because she is sooooo much nicer than me. Fabulous.

Just to add to the joy, Liam decided to practice his annoying little brother skills on the ride home. When I went to take the kids out of the car, he had a big handful of McKenna's hair. Her precious "princess hair" that she LOVES. LOVES.(Now I know why she was whining and crying!) You're treading on thin ice, kid.

I lugged everyone into the house while trying to talk to my mother-in-law on the phone. As soon as we walked in the door, I dropped all 10 bags I was carrying (fortunately I managed not to drop the baby!) and COLLAPSED onto the couch long enough to finish the last 2 minutes of the phone call. The whole time, Alyssa was crying and Liam was waving his fistful of hair triumphantly in Kenna's face, making her scream about her princess hair being all gone. Awesome.

Matt called the second I hung up from talking to his mom. So while we were chatting, I changed clothes and took the kids coats and shoes off (more crying and whining). I took the butter out of the fridge for the cakes I ABSOLUTELY needed to make that night and set it on the counter. As we kept talking, he arrived at his regular work building and said something like, "As long as you remembered to get my uniform out of the back of the Jeep..."

OH #*&$%!

(I didn't actually swear, but I so wanted to...)

So...I changed clothes AGAIN (can't wear PJs to his work...and yes I changed into my pajamas at 5:30), put the kids' coats and shoes on AGAIN and dragged everyone and everything back out to the car. We took Matt his uniform, sat through the lovely rush hour traffic, and finally arrived back home an hour after we left.

I was DONE.

The kids didn't get a bath...I don't think I even remembered to brush their teeth.

The cakes did not get made like they were supposed to. In fact, as far as I know, the butter is still sitting on the counter.

Like I said...CRAZY.

I think I'm going to go read yesterday's post again...

Oh, and thanks to Jon and Kate Plus 8 commercials for the post title. I can't even handle 3 I have no idea how they handle 8.

Funky Town

My heart was heavy yesterday. It was one of those days when I just can't seem to get myself out of a funk, mostly because I'm preoccupied with how I got in the funk in the first place.

I'm one of those people that worries way too much about what other people think. And although I've repeatedly tried to get over this, it just doesn't seem to be in my nature. It kills me to think that someone might not like me, or might think that I am unkind or anything like unto it. I OBSESS over it. (Ask my husband...he'll probably roll his eyes like, "Do you even KNOW this woman? OF COURSE.") I just hate thinking that I am the cause for someone else's discomfort or hurt feelings.

So I was pretty much locked in my brain most of yesterday worrying about a situation of this sort and thinking about how it really bugs me that this stuff really bugs me. (Sounds like fun, huh.) Especially in this particular situation where it seems like there really isn't anything I can do about it. No matter what I say, I don't think it will change anything.

UGH.

I hate that pit of despair feeling that seems to make your whole body depressed. It felt like my whole evening was in slow motion. (p.s. Folding laundry in slow motion is a drag.)

My children did little to encourage the funk to lift. Usually, they are pretty good at cheering me up (especially the baby!), but I guess they didn't get the memo that mommy needed happy kids. (It doesn't help that at least half the house has been sick with something for at least the last, oh...six weeks? And that we're still struggling through it.) The girls did alright, but they seemed extra prone to sibling squabbles and WHINING. (Mom's biggest pet peeve. Yay.)

Liam was cranky all evening. Those stubborn teeth refuse to give the poor thing a break. I could not do anything to make him happy for longer than 10 minutes. I had planned on finishing one of my big (secret) projects that has been taking all of my spare time for the last month, but alas, it was not to be. He wanted me to try to hold him all night while he tried to wiggle away. We ended up vegging on the couch during the "debate" because I just COULD NOT TAKE ANY MORE. At least that numbed my senses for a little while. (Is it bad that watching those two speak makes me so uncomfortable that I have to get up and leave the room every few minutes? I am physically incapable of watching either one of them for extended periods of time.)

So yeah...my night was a BLAST. I still haven't gotten the funk to lift completely, but at least it is a little better due to my Amazing (!!!!) Mom and Sis-in-Law. They gave me some good ideas for the birthday party. Now I can finally get an e-mail out since I finally have an idea what we're going to do (e-mails count as invitations, shut up).

Sorry for being such a downer. Hope I didn't offend anyone. Or hurt any feelings...

Here we go again...


We'll have to talk about my phobia of parties later. I'm sure it will come up again soon.

Scheduling Nightmares

Don't you love it when people decide to mess with your life without asking you what you think about it first? Fun, isn't it.

(Insert unamused face here...)

Matt works for a law enforcement agency here in the valley and over the last 3 weeks or so they have been messing around with the work schedule. Most of the officers have spouses/kids that they have to work around and it's a pretty delicate balance to keep everyone in a work schedule that works for their personal situation. For example, we work opposite schedules with me getting to work at 5:30am and trading off the kids at around 2:30pm. Everybody gets a manageable amount of sleep (mostly) and the kids get to spend all their time with either mom or dad instead of going to a day care or babysitter. It's not ideal, but it works for us and where we're at right now.

Now they've decided to change the schedule and apparently they have given very little thought to how this will effect their employees (it usually helps if you ask them about it before you change things...). We thought we were done with this last week when they had the new bid. But NOOOOO, now they're talking about going to 12 hour shifts...making things even worse than with the schedule they just put out a week ago.

In short, this is why our lives have been in turmoil the past few weeks and why I've had little motivation to write anything. My mind has been incredibly preoccupied with the whole business and I've taken to holing myself up in the sewing room in my spare minutes so I don't have to think about it. (On the upside, the quilt top got finished!)

Matt has spent every waking moment (and a lot of ones where he should have been sleeping) thinking about this schedule and trying to figure out a way to keep it the way it was and still meet the new requirements. He presented some of his ideas to his sergeant a couple weeks ago and that didn't really go anywhere, but I guess one of the other officers mentioned it to the department head and he asked to see what Matt has been working on. He e-mailed it out to him this morning so it's out of our hands once again. I've got my fingers crossed that this guy will see the big picture and do something a little more reasonable. If you can spare a little prayer for us, it would be greatly appreciated!

In the meantime, we're trying to figure out how we're going to get Matt to his last class to finish school. They turned him down for the time off he needed to attend class.

(Insert another unamused face here.)

We'll not talk about that. I'm still angry about it.

Anyway...hopefully this will all work out and we'll be getting back to the happy fun posts again.

Now excuse me while I go back to pinching myself until I to wake up from this scheduling nightmare to find that life is back to normal.

Where is global warming when I need it?

This is the post wherein I don't mention the fact that there was snow on the ground when I left my house this morning. It is also where I don't mention that it is STILL SNOWING. Or the fact that it is bone chillingly cold...or that usually by this time of year we have ditched our winter coats already.

But seriously...for the love of corn...WHAT IS UP WITH THE WEATHER?!?! Excuse the yelling, but I'm having a really hard time believing in global warming when it was 33 degrees outside when I left my house on the morning of MAY 1.

Seriously, I even had to break out the colored text for this.

I WANT SPRING! I really don't want to go directly from winter to summer. Please. Please can we have spring? The slightly cool temperature with the nice breeze? You remember that time, right? Kind of like the fall but with green leaves and flowers?

can we have spring...pretty please?...

That is all for my rant...but only because I can't currently see outside a window.

Thank you.

Amen.

Just when you think it's safe to break out your sandals...

We had a HUGE Snow storm this morning. HUGE. We're talking a harrowing, white knuckle, going 25 miles per hour on the freeway all the way to work because the snow plows apparently don't come out before 5am, kind of adventure. And that, my friends, is NOT my idea of fun.

Please Utah...it's SPRING. Let's have SPRING weather. Because this is one girl that is very tired of driving in the snow.

Because, let's be honest Utah, your drivers here...they kind of suck.

p.s. To the guy in the big lifted 4 wheel drive truck that passed me at 70 miles per hour with 4 inches of slush on the road...Was that you I saw 15 minutes later slid off the side of the freeway with your bumper 20 feet behind you?

Back to Work

I went back to work today.

I'm grateful for my job.
I'm grateful for the ability to work.
I'm grateful that I can help provide for my family.

But I'd much rather be home with the kids and Matt.

Even though the girls sometimes drive me nuts.
Even though I never get sick or vacation days.
Even though the work never ends.

I miss my family.

I miss my car...

I had to take my car to the shop today to get the dent fixed. Therefore, I had to start driving my brother's Suburban. While I am intensely grateful for their willingness to let me borrow a car for the week...I never EVER want to own one of these behemoths. I feel like I'm driving a tank.

I had to take it over to the mall to get a new cell phone (since the battery in mine decided that holding a charge for any longer than 10 minutes was not something it felt like doing anymore). I ended up parking clear out in the boonies of the parking lot because I didn't trust myself not to hit anything due to the immense size.

It has all kinds of fun quirks (i.e. when you push on the gas pedal it has an STRONG desire to turn left...) and interesting sounds effects (squirrels live in the heating apparatus, I'm pretty sure...)

I've decided I like little, quiet, 4 door sedans...a LOT.

i miss my car...